Traditional PBX features are ‘reactive’ in the sense that they are triggered by user actions and take no action otherwise. Reactive features facilitate communications directed by a user. A user must take the initiative with all calls under the reactive feature model. Pro-active features, on the other hand, take the initiative and suggest communications that may be of benefit to the user.
Pro-active features are known in the art of computer science but are relatively new to the field of telephony. As discussed above, the initiation of communication has traditionally been left to the initiative of the user. Call-back is the only telephony feature that comes close to the idea of pro-active features. With Call-back, a user can ask the system to notify him/her when a busy line becomes free, and create a call between the user's telephone and the newly freed line. The system generates a special ring to the originating telephone and sets up the call upon the user going off-hook. In the context of pro-active features, the telephony Call-back feature suffers from a number of disadvantages. Firstly, the user is required to actively intervene in the process (i.e. go off-hook in response to the special ringing). Secondly, the feature accommodates only one user at a time. Lastly, the feature is temporary in the sense that it needs to be invoked by the user every time it is used, or after a daily timer expires (required to prevent confusion by removing long delayed call backs).
The inventor has recognized the desirability of a system for allowing a user to establish groups of people that he/she may wish to have voice collaboration with while working on a project or problem, pro-actively identifying a selected group based on the user's activity, and suggesting communication with available members of the group.
Currently ‘buddy lists’ are used on instant messaging systems like ICQ and AOL to indicate the availability status of other users that the user may wish to communicate with. These systems provide only one list per user and do not provide the capability of multiple lists or the selection of one of multiple lists depending on user needs. Thus, it is an object of an aspect of the present invention to extend the capability and enhance the usefulness of such “buddy lists” by providing the capability of selecting between lists either by direct user selection or by autonomous system action.
Busy lamp fields (BLFs) are also well-known for use in telephone systems to provide attendants with knowledge of the current busy/idle status of telephones in the system. BLFs are expensive and so are reserved for specialized attendant positions. They also indicate only the busy status of the users' telephones and not actual availability. Furthermore, BLFs show all users and the display is not in any way limited to those persons of current interest to a particular user.